


not a song but a war declaration

by kimaracretak



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (like it's deliberately unclear in the story), (raishan is also keyleth for a bit), Choking, F/F, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rough Sex, Self-cest, Shapeshifting, Smut as Character Work, Violence, allusions to incest for like two seconds (raishan may or may not wear korren's face briefly), background mostly one-sided keyleth/most people, dubcon, keyleth has a tail, lowkey implied death kink on raishan's part, raishan has the faces of everyone keyleth loves, they're my very favourited fucked-up disaster, very non-mechanical uses of alter self, yknow all the general keyleth/raishan mid-conclave-arc warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 07:20:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12812493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: Raishan likes turning into people Keyleth knows during sex. Keyleth likes punishing her for it.(Keyleth is not that good at lying to herself.)





	not a song but a war declaration

**Author's Note:**

> title from the dark element, 'dead to me'
> 
> half a fill for [this kmeme prompt](https://criticalkink.dreamwidth.org/700.html?thread=298684#cmt298684) but because i'm me i took five months to write it and forgot half the specifics along the way -- i hope the op likes it if they read it & someone else fills it closer to the prompt for them!
> 
> in b4 someone complains about alter self/beast shape not working like that i'm a DM and i say it doesn't matter

In the dark hidden part of her mind where she's been trying to put things like insecurities and thoughts of what might have happened to her mother, Keyleth knows that this ... _deal_ she has with Raishan is just an excuse. Knows that, given any other chance, she would still be here, three fingers deep in Raishan while Raishan's inhuman claws dig into her throat deep enough to hurt her the way Vax could never even dream of.

"Your mind's wandering, Princess," Raishan murmurs, as Keyleth feels blood start to rise from the puncture wounds in her neck. "Maybe I should give you some incentive to pay attention, hmm? What if I ..."

Keyleth feels the crackle of her magic a fraction of a second too late to pull away as the hair in her hand thins and darkens, as the eyes caught on her own soften and shade into blue.

"Like me better now?" Raishan's voice asks with Vax's mouth.

Keyleth pulls her fingers free with a wet, slick sound and she can _feel_ her nails lengthening into claws, her own magic growing wilder in response to Raishan's. "Wear your own face, coward."

"What's wrong, Kiki?" Raishan's voice is deeper now, thready and half-desperate like Vax's always gets when he's on his knees in front of her. "Afraid you like me more when I'm myself, and not your little toy?"

Keyleth surges forward, and the mask of Vax's face shivers and splits as Raishan's head hits the wall with a crack. "That name's not for you and you know it." Part of her knows that her anger is exactly what Raishan wants — what Raishan has wanted, ever since they started this. A bigger part of her, the part of her that delights in wringing pleasure from Raishan's desperate body, doesn't care. Raishan can plot and scheme as much as she wants, they both know she'll end up pulled apart under Keyleth's hands every night.

Raishan bares Vax's teeth at her. "What are you going to do about it? You can't seem to do anything without me, these days."

Keyleth grits her teeth and _breathes_ , runs one sharp nail — no, she realises, it's a claw now too, though more like a raven's than Raishan's own — along Raishan's hairline. "I could rip his face from your bones." But she's not sure she could hurt someone with Vax's face, even now, and from the way Raishan laughs she knows she doesn't believe her either.

"Hm. But it's not just _his_ face, is it, Princess?" This time Keyleth shuts her eyes, knowing exactly what Raishan means and unwilling to force herself to see all the tiny details change.

There is not, after all, that much to change between Vax and his twin.

"Does he understand, when you call for her in bed instead of him?" Raishan runs her hands up and down Keyleth's back in a mockery of soothing, and that more than anything makes Keyleth flush with shame. She buries her face in Vex's — Raishan's — shoulder to hide her burning cheeks. "Does he know it's about more than how he looks?"

"I don't say her name in bed," Keyleth hisses, voice muffled by the fall of black hair. _Anymore_ , is the real truth, but Raishan already knows too much about the sick selfish part of her that would steal Vex away from the happiness she'd found with Zahra.

"But you want her," Raishan says, too-gently lifting Keyleth's face to kiss her with Vex's mouth.

Her lips are soft and her teeth are dull for the first time, and for half a moment it's light under Keyleth's lips, Vex's approval for all the good she tries to do instead of Raishan's smug satisfaction at all the dark she is.

But it isn't Vex, and never will be, because Vex is brave and bold and lies with a lover she trusts enough to ask for what she wants. Not like Keyleth, tongue-tied and pliant under Vax's unearned worship or angry and animal-rough as she pins Raishan to the wall and _takes_.

If she fucks Raishan with fingers and tongue enough times and doesn't guard her teeth, if she lets Vax please her with lips and cock and doesn't close her eyes, then sometimes things are quiet and she doesn't have to break.

But Raishan takes _so much_  pleasure in winding her up until she snaps so sharply they both come away bloody.

Raishan's breath is hot on her cheek when Keyleth finally finds the strength to pull away from Vex's stolen form. "Fuck you."

Raishan just looks at Keyleth's hand, where her fingers are still sticky with the evidence that she was doing just that not five minutes ago. "Will you?" she asks, and in a blur of green Vex is gone, and Pike stands before her. "Or will you leave, like you always leave me?"

Keyleth has seen Pike look cruel before, but she's never seen that cruelty directed at any of them. " _Enough_ ," she snaps, turning and trying to focus on the bed they had both ignored when they came up from dinner. It's not their word — and she has to believe that even now Raishan would stop if Keyleth truly wanted her to — but she needs a moment to calm the dizzy-sick feeling warring with arousal in the pit of her belly.

Keyleth's not sure what's worse: the faces Raishan's wearing or the fact that despite those faces she's still wet enough that she's practically dripping down her thighs.

Raishan's laughter sounds almost surprised. "Oh, her too? Sweet child, who _aren't_  you in love with?"

"You bitch," Keyleth says, and her voice sounds foreign to her own ears. She reaches up to her throat, finds scales instead of skin and knows without seeing that they're just as green as Raishan's dragon form.

"No," Raishan agrees, and Keyleth feels her hands settle briefly on her waist before one dips down between her legs. The hands are small, small enough that Keyleth thinks if she turns around she would still see Pike. "Not me. We have something better, don't we, sweetling?"

Pike's voice, but the wrong endearment. Small fingers tease at her clit, and Keyleth feels the wet curve of Raishan's smile pressing into the small of her back as Raishan's fingers slip inside her with no resistance. "Do they know?" Raishan asks, and Keyleth can only moan in response, legs trembling as she sways in Raishan's grip. "Do they know where you go at night? Do they know how much you want them? What I do for you?"

"No," Keyleth moans, and she's not sure if she's answering one of the questions or telling Raishan to stop. "No, no, Pi — _Raishan_."

She reaches down to grab Raishan's hand, and sees that her fingers are gone entirely now, replaced by twisted claws that meet green-scaled skin up to her wrists. Raishan pauses — _does she see? does she know?_ — and then Keyleth feels the fingers inside her thicken and lengthen, and she cries out as the stretch burns delightfully though her.

"All grown up." The voice is familiar, but Keyleth can't place it, caught off guard by the sudden emptiness as Raishan slips her — _who is she now? do I want to know?_ — fingers free and spins her around.

The face is older, grey hair and lines pulling at the corner of the eyes, and, _father?_  Keyleth thinks for one wild, awful, unsurprised moment. But she blinks, halfway through the word, and she's looking at herself, red hair, pale skin, and every freckle perfectly placed across the bridge of her nose.

Keyleth shrinks back towards the bed, fighting the sudden ridiculous urge to cover herself. Raishan inhabits Keyleth's body better than she ever did, brings an elegance to overly long limbs and a proud cant to her narrow chin.

"You can't say you've never wondered," Raishan says conversationally, trailing her fingers down her neck and chest to pinch at her nipples. Keyleth follows the path of her fingers, finds only the same uncanny familiarity as in her face. "After all ... who better knows how to pleasure you than yourself?"  _Than me_ , she doesn't say, but Keyleth knows.

"After everything you've taken," Keyleth hisses instead of answering. "Me, too?"

"I've taken nothing." Raishan stalks forward, an improbable mirror, and Keyleth remembers, as she backs up until her knees hit the mattress and she sinks down onto the bed, that elves are a green dragon's favourite prey. "But perhaps you should think of why you're so eager for someone in your skin to take."

Keyleth thinks of sinking her fangs into Raishan's neck and dragging them down, down, ripping her skin back piece by piece until it's all her own again. She thinks of sliding down the bed — when had Raishan moved to the bed? — and parting her thighs, tasting herself as she truly is, rather than being satisfied with licking the taste from another's body.

"You're a monster," she says, but it sounds like less of a truth than it should be.

Raishan grins and stretches, spreading her legs in shameless invitation. "Come on, then," she says, "monster. Show me you can match your skin."

It's a mockery of — of something, Keyleth's sure, kneeling over a body that looks just like hers, pinning its wrists to the bed, her tail flicking up to part Raishan's lips. But she can't imagine leaving now.

Keyleth hadn't meant for the tail — hasn't had control over her shifting magic all night — but as she feels the wet slide of Raishan's tongue curling around the tip, watches the way Raishan's lips stretch so pretty and pink around it as she shoves her tail so far into Raishan's mouth that she starts to gag on it, she wonders why she hasn't done this before.

Raishan moans helplessly underneath her, finally as close to silenced as she ever is when they're together, and satisfaction curls hot through Keyleth's veins. Her hips buck up against Keyleth, searching for friction, or penetration, or maybe even a way out, but Keyleth isn't inclined to give her anything just yet. Not with the way this night's been going.

"No you don't," she says, experimentally pushing her tail deeper, tickling the back of Raishan's throat. She wonders what she would do, if their positions were reversed, how long her real body could hold Raishan's tail in its mouth. How different would it be from Vax's cock?

This, too, Raishan takes, and Keyleth can't hold back a giggle at the thought of the dragon caught in her own wordplay.

Raishan makes an irritated noise around Keyleth's tail and thrusts up hard enough that her hips come off the bed, and Keyleth has to struggle to stay straddling her.

"Oh no," she says, resettling her weight more firmly across Raishan's thighs. "You've been awful all night, and you have to live with what you've done."

It's easier to think of her as _Raishan_  in this form than any other of her stolen ones, easy to think of the two of them on the bed as something Raishan has _made_  rather than something Keyleth _wants_ , and, gods, she would hate Raishan for it if she didn't already hate her for so many things.

Rather than follow that train of thought any further, she fixes her eyes on Raishan's and smirks when she finds them gold, Raishan's own control over her magic slipping too. "Like that," she says, and presses two fingers roughly inside.

Raishan keens around her makeshift gag, and Keyleth remembers her claws a moment too late. "Payback," she says simply, her cunt clenching around nothing but the memories of times Raishan hasn't shielded her nails. "You like it too, don't you?"

Raishan glares up at her, deep green hair tangling against the pillow as she nods. _Fuck you_ , Keyleth imagines her saying if she could speak, and the thrill of _winning_ makes her grind down hard against Raishan's leg, painting her skin with her slick. "I like you like this."

Does that make her the monster Raishan's so convinced she is? The body on the bed hardly looks like either of them now, if she mostly-shuts her eyes, and it emboldens her enough that she doesn't resist the urge to drag her claws slow against the velvet-smooth inner walls of Raishan's cunt.

There's no mistaking Raishan's scream this time for anything but one of pain.

 _Turn you inside out just like this_ , she thinks idly, and the horror of desire has her shivering in a not-quite orgasm on top of Raishan's thighs.

There's tears welling in the corners of Raishan's eyes but she's smiling as much as she can around Keyleth's tail. But despite the lovely intriguing noises she keeps making, Keyleth isn't satisfied.

She pulls her tail free from Raishan's mouth none too gently, and shudders as Raishan's teeth drag across the length of it.

"Thought you were going to let me suffocate on you, Princess." Raishan's voice is wrecked, and Keyleth tells herself it's just that unfamiliarity that makes her sound disappointed.

"One day," Keyleth says, and, then, when the way Raishan licks her lips at the thought makes the insight unavoidable, "if you're very, very good."

Raishan has said worse with Keyleth's mouth tonight.

For a moment as she studies Raishan's face — and it is almost Raishan's face again, freckles fading and mouth broadening — Keyleth thinks she's going to beg for real, mouth almost starting to shape ple —

She bends and sinks her fangs into Raishan's lips in a not-quite kiss before she can, unwilling to cede even that little amount of illusory control anymore. She tastes blood, tastes magic, imagines she can taste the remnants of her own orgasm earlier in the night. "Yes," Keyleth murmurs, dragging her tail along Raishan's body. It leaves a slick trail over her skin, and Keyleth tries hard not to think about what the trail would look like in blood.

She rests her hand on Raishan's throat as she shifts on her knees enough to press her tail along Raishan's cunt. "In the meantime, though..."

Keyleth curls her fingers around Raishan's throat, feels the skin break under her claws at the precise moment she slips her tail into her cunt.

Raishan doesn't have the breath to scream anymore, just whimpers and thrashes against the mattress, hips bucking wildly out of time with the movement of Keyleth's tail.

Part of Keyleth wants to draw this out, give back some of the torment Raishan's put her through all night, but despite Raishan's wild eyes and ragged gasps, she's not sure taking her time would do anything but give Raishan time to plan something _worse_.

She rests her free hand at her throat, finding balance on just her knees easier now with her tail, even when it's occupied fucking Raishan just slowly enough that it's not _enough_.

"Monster," she whispers, tightening the grip of her right hand, and she feels blood start to well under the tips of her claws, and, " _monster_ ," she says as she digs her claws deeper into Raishan's neck, prayer and accusation both as blood slips down her palm as Raishan comes apart around her with a choked lovely-awful whine. 

Keyleth rolls off of her as soon as Raishan stops shaking, turns her back as she feels tail and claws and fangs all recede. There's no getting rid of the blood with alter self, though, and Keyleth groans as she presses the relatively clean backs of her hands to her closed eyes. 

Raishan turns her over with one careful hand, and for a second as Keyleth takes in the sight of her bloody and ruined and definitely wholly, entirely, Raishan, she thinks she should say something.

"Don't worry," Raishan whispers before she can decide what, and presses a soft, satisfied kiss to Keyleth's slick mouth. "One day you'll thank me for everything we've done."

Keyleth manages to wait until the door has clicked shut behind her before she buries her face in her pillow and starts to cry.


End file.
